“California has the toughest gun safety laws in the nation.” —Gavin Newsom Problem is, it has made no difference. Take-aways California’s suicide rate is low due to demographics. California’s gun homicide rate is slightly below average and tied with states with nearly no gun laws. Gun laws and gun homicide rates do not correlate at all, denuding claims about “toughest gun safety laws.” The suicide slide
Continue reading →When it comes to children and guns, both the New York Times and California Governor Gavin Newsom seem to lack both honesty and basic math skills. The former created a misleading meme using bad definitions and incorrect analysis. The latter, being a politician of the craven variety, aped bad data without even a cursory fact check. The Equine Effluvium Conflates different age groups Omits many rows of data about child and teen deaths that are higher than gun deaths Portrays teen age street gang members as “children” Ignores age-related issues or the underlying causes of deaths The Data is Raw The Times perpetrated intellectual fraud by using a subset of the causes of death common to children and to teens (two different groups) and amalgamating them into one entirely inaccurate meme. The fallacious point they want you to believe is that guns are now the leading cause of death among … Continue reading →
“There are more gun stores in America than Starbucks and McDonalds combined.” This was a headline from a propaganda organization within the gun control movement. As with any wild-sounding claim from either camp, the Gun Facts project took interest. A bit of data chasing and number crunching shows that the claim is marginally accurate yet totally misleading. But what else would one expect from The Trace. Major Take-aways There are even wilder and less accurate store-vs-store claims floating about than this one. There are approximately 236 more gun stores than the combined total of Starbucks and McDonald’s outlets (28,382 vs 28,146); but that’s if we count pawn shops as “gun stores.” Subtract those (8,002) and the claim gets reversed. In addition, an unknown number of the above “gun stores” are just gunsmiths and not actual retailers. The ratio of gun stores to these two food franchises varies wildly from state … Continue reading →
Barack Obama’s careless statement that “it’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable,” is just one example of misleading rhetoric about purchasing a firearm in the United States. Sadly, it has become quite the common misconception that guns are easy to purchase, perhaps too easy, which is why so many criminals are armed with them. Unfortunately, this huge misunderstanding of the actual laws and regulations–which have been in place for years–has tainted the public’s perception of the true process that’s required of every gun manufacturer in order to avoid penalties. The half-truths and blatant lies about gun sales and how criminals obtain firearms in the first place have either zero basis or are being partially reported to skew the public’s view of gun facts. It is unfortunate that the public has been so misled about the truth behind … Continue reading →
“We need to understand gun violence,” said the gun control industry talking head. “But the gun lobby has blocked all research. نتائج اليورو 2023 ” To paraphrase Emo Philips, some days it just doesn’t pay for a propagandist to chew through their leather restraints. The Data Exists … everywhere Gun violence is one of the most ridiculously over-studied topics in American criminology. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has over 800 publications that mention “firearm violence” and over 500 data collections and surveys listed (albeit, some are updates of older ones). Google Scholar lists over 500 peer reviewed criminology studies with “firearm violence” in the title published in the last decade. When the National Academy of Sciences studied gun control and gun violence, they reviewed 253 journal articles, read 99 books, ingested 43 government publications, and even did some of their own original research. And this doesn’t even touch compilations and … Continue reading →
When propagandists panic, they show their own paranoia. I was forwarded an email from Michael Bloomberg’s agitprop organization, Everytown. In this email, they stated with authentic dismay and dread that in some states you can order a beer in a bar while having a holstered sidearm (providing you have a concealed carry license, a.k.a. CCW). Sane people – which evidently excludes folks working for Bloomberg – would ask “Is this a problem?” Phrased more fully, “Do CCW holders enjoying an adult beverage in their corner watering hole cause problems?” The answer is no. In fact, stats show it might actually abate violence. Shots and Glasses In our Non-Brady Scorecard project (alas, no longer being published), we reviewed both pro- and anti-gun control laws, including allowing CCW holders to pack heat in pubs. Not many states allow this, but enough have had the law in place to at least get an … Continue reading →
If you are losing, change the definition of the argument. There is a classic tale about Amtrak. They had a lousy on-time record. After months of investigation and planning, they implemented changes and quickly began boasting that their on-time record was fantastic. What they changed was the definition of “on-time” from plus or minus five minutes to 30 minutes. When empirical evidence does not support gun control, members of the gun control industry change definitions. It is a classic propaganda technique and one that has found new life in this election cycle. The news item which brought this to mind was when several reporters blindly echoed claims that mass public shootings were sharply on the rise. A quick dig into the data these reporters failed to vet showed that the definition of “mass public shooting” was itself inaccurate. The enduring and traditional definition of a mass shooting is one where … Continue reading →
Main Take-aways The “Iron Pipeline” doesn’t exist. Most guns that move from one state to another do so as part of normal human relocation, not trafficking. The time it takes for a gun to slip into criminal use is so long that the problem is local crime control and not interstate gun control. When it comes to gun control, nobody has ever accused the New York Times of honesty or accuracy. I won’t break their losing streak. In a recent bit of editorial effluvium and journalistic malpractice, the NYT penned perilous prose concerning the mythical “Iron Pipeline” of guns migrating into states with strict gun control from states without. The Gun Facts Project has already run the numbers and shown the Iron Pipeline to be both a con job as well as demonstrating the inverse is actually true. In brief, states with strict gun control laws are more likely to … Continue reading →
Politico, a publication of dubious integrity, headlined an article saying “Mayors to Congress: ‘Get a Backbone’ and Pass Gun Control. كيف تحصل على المال ” What Politico didn’t tell you was they stacked the deck. The survey polled highly selected mayors and asked them a few gun control questions. Now, to Politico’s credit – and perhaps the only credit we can give them – they buried in their article the statement “while not scientific …” This is akin to saying the Pope isn’t a Baptist. Here is exactly how this survey sucked. اشتراك يورو 2023 BIASED MAYORS: Anti-gun zealot Michael Bloomberg had an organization called Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), which he folded into his newer AstroTurf umbrella group Everytown for Gun Safety. A quick check of the responding mayors shows that a full 71% of the cherry-picked mayors are current members of Bloomberg’s group. Another 5% head cities where a previous Mayor was a member. That last … Continue reading →
Speaking to a conclave of top cops, Barack Obama decided to promote gun control (it should be noted this was an international association of primarily politically appointed chiefs, so their opinion does not reflect that of the average patrol officer). In his talk, Obama made several rather insane proclamations. My job is to stomp on his sound bites. 60% of Crime Guns (In Chicago) Come From Out Of State Obama’s gambit was to claim that states with strict gun control laws suffer from guns imported from states with more relaxed laws. We handily disproved this was that case, but also showed that strict states are more likely to import crime guns from other strict states … by a two-to-one ratio. More to the point, in his home state of Illinois, a full 84% of recovered crime guns came from Illinois and another 3% came from states with strict gun control … Continue reading →
